Leonid Brezhnev and Edward Gierek: The Making and Breaking of an Uneven Friendship

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-286
Author(s):  
Jakub Szumski
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
General Secretary

The article examines the relationship between the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev, and the First Secretary of the Polish United Worker’s Party, Edward Gierek, during the 1970s and contributes to the understanding of relationships between Brezhnev and other leaders of the Eastern Bloc. In order to fulfill his foreign policy goals, Brezhnev needed active and willing cooperation from the Eastern Bloc and its leaders benefited from this endeavor. Gierek responded to this demand by entering into an “uneven friendship” with Brezhnev that was established according to the Soviet “friendship code.” This privileged relationship was dependent on the inner situation within the Soviet leadership, the progress of détente, Poland’s domestic stability, and ultimately did not counterbalance Poland’s structurally disadvantageous status in the Eastern Bloc.

Foreign Policy Problems and Polarized Political Communities: Some Implications of A Simple Model

1971 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. R. Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Large Population ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
Policy Problems ◽  
The Relationship

Once upon a time, during the early 1960s, all undergraduate International Relations courses in the United Kingdom were deemed incomplete if they did not contain a number of lectures on the question of the relationship between a country's foreign policy and the shape, size and other attributes of its national political community. The lectures often evolved into a discussion of the relative advantages of possessing a large population, and whether or not this was an element in a state's power (as in the case of the Soviet Union) or of a state's weakness, and hence of its inherent inability to attain a wider range of desirable foreign policy goals (as in the case of India). The debate was usually fairly inconclusive.

The Trials of Arnošt K.

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 320-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Gordin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Secret Police ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
Soviet Authority ◽  
The Soviet Union

The Prague-born philosopher and historian of science Arnošt Kolman (1892–1979)—who often published under his Russian name Ernest Kol’man—has fallen into obscurity, much like dialectical materialism, the philosophy of science he represented. From modest Czech-Jewish origins, Kolman seized opportunities posed by the advent of the Bolshevik Revolution to advance to the highest levels of polemical Stalinist philosophy, returned to Prague as an activist laying the groundwork for the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, was arrested and held for three years by the Soviet secret police, returned to work in Moscow and Prague as a historian of science, played vastly contrasting roles in the Luzin Affair of the 1930s and the rehabilitation of cybernetics in the 1950s, and defected—after 58 years in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—to Sweden in 1976. This article argues that Kolman’s biography represents his gradual separation of dialectical materialism from other aspects of Soviet authority, a disentanglement enabled by the perspective gained from repeated returns to Prague and the diversity of dialectical-materialist thought developed in the Eastern Bloc. This essay is part of a special issue entitled THE BONDS OF HISTORY edited by Anita Guerrini.

scholarly journals How successful was Joseph Stalin in establishing Soviet Union as a superpower?

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-31
Author(s):  
Jakub Majkowski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact

This essay will firstly address the extent of Stalin’s achievements in leading the course for domestic policy of the Soviet Union and its contribution towards maintaining the country’s supremacy in the world, for example the rapid post-war recovery of industry and agriculture, and secondly, the foreign policy including ambiguous relations with Communist governments of countries forming the Eastern Bloc, upkeeping frail alliances and growing antagonism towards western powers, especially the United States of America.   The actions and influence of Stalin’s closest associates in the Communist Party and the effect of Soviet propaganda on the society are also reviewed. This investigation will cover the period from 1945 to 1953. Additionally, other factors such as the impact of post-war worldwide economic situation and attitude of the society of Soviet Union will be discussed.    

Did the Soviet Union instruct Southeast Asian communists to revolt? New Russian evidence on the Calcutta Youth Conference of February 1948

2009 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larisa Efimova
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents

This article uses recently declassified archival documents from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) concerning the Calcutta Youth Conference of February 1948. This evidence contradicts speculation that ‘orders from Moscow’ were passed to Southeast Asian communists at this time, helping to spark the rebellions in Indonesia, Malaya, Burma and the Philippines later that year. Secret working papers now available to researchers show no signs that the Soviet leadership planned to call upon Asian communists to rise up against their national bourgeois governments at this point in time. This article outlines the real story behind Soviet involvement in events leading up to the Calcutta Youth Conference, showing both a desire to increase information and links, and yet also a degree of caution over the prospects of local parties.

The Soviet Dimension of Italian Communism

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 115-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Drake
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The Other ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Abundant Evidence ◽  
The Relationship

This essay reviews two books that provide diverging views of the relationship between the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the Soviet Union. The first book, a lengthy collection of declassified documents from the former Soviet archives, provides abundant evidence of the PCI's crucial dependence on Soviet funding. No Communist party outside the Soviet bloc depended more on Soviet funding over the years than the PCI did. Vast amounts of money flowed from Moscow into the PCI's coffers. The Italian Communists maintained their heavy reliance on Soviet funding until the early 1980s. The other book discussed here a memoir by Gianni Cervetti, a former senior PCI financial official seeks to defend the party's policy and to downplay the importance of the aid provided by Moscow. Nonetheless, even Cervetti's book makes clear, if only inadvertently, that the link with the Soviet Union helped spark the broader collapse of Marxism-Leninism as a mobilizing force.

scholarly journals Russia’s Exogenous Factor in the Donbass Conflict

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-110
Author(s):  
Yevgeny Ryabinin
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
Clash Of Civilizations ◽  
Exogenous Factor ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Military

The hypothesis of this research is that Russia has been imposing its influence on Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Before the political and military crisis in 2013, it was an indirect influence, whereas since 2014 it has been a direct impact in many spheres. It is necessary to underline that Ukraine has always been split into two parts in terms of foreign policy priorities, language, religion, and culture. This fact was mentioned by Samuel Huntington, who predicted an intense crisis in bilateral relations between Russia and Ukraine in his work Clash of Civilizations. There were two parties in Ukraine that were widely supported in South-Eastern Ukraine, namely the Party of Regions and the Communist Party. The former never spoke about the integration of Ukraine as part of Russian integrational projects because its politicians were afraid of aggressive Russian capital. So they only used pro-Russian rhetoric to win elections. The Communist Party openly backed integration with Russia, but didn’t get enough support as for this idea. It is also demonstrated that there were no parties that were backed financially by Russia, because the parties that offered a kind of a union with Russia never got any seats in the parliament. Since 2014, Russia has been imposing its influence on Ukraine in various spheres, such as economics, politics, diplomacy, the military sphere, etc. Having signed two cease-fire agreements, Russia and Ukraine have failed to apply them and the crisis continues to this day.

scholarly journals ASSESSING INDONESIA-RUSSIA FOREIGN POLICY DURING SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO ADMINISTRATION

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Marten Hanura
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
New Order ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Policy Making Process ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship

Russia or formerly known as the Soviet Union has a historically unique cooperation and diplomatic relations with Indonesia. This is because the relationship between Indonesia and Russia has a long history and experiencing ups and downs. The closeness of the two countries was influenced ideologically in the early days of Indonesian independence, and later the rise of the New Order regime influenced the dynamics of Indonesian foreign policy. During the New Order period, the Indonesian government began to freeze all forms of cooperative relations with the Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War era began to change the map of international politics to affect the situation in Indonesia. In the Post-Reformation era, the normalization of relations between the two countries recovered and lasted until the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The purpose of this article is to find out how the changes in the implementation of the foreign policy of Indonesia-Russia during the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono with the previous era and what factors underlie Indonesia's foreign policy towards Russia. This research uses the descriptive-analytical method and using some theoretical concepts in the foreign policy-making process. The results of this study concluded that foreign policy between Indonesia and Russia increased significantly in the Post-Reformation era which no longer saw Russia as a threat as in the New Order era. The cooperation between Indonesia and Russia is implemented in various main areas, prominently is the cooperation in the field of military, social, economic and political.

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